you keep on saying you'll be mine for a while

i think i might know why this summer has felt so empty.

i miss the scripp kids.

terribly.

MIXTAPALOOZA

other than being insanely thankful that one of my best friends is among the living after a motorcycle accident, i went to pitchfork music festival in chicago this weekend.

here's some tracks from bands that played which i burned onto a cd for my dad. so even though this is skewed toward my dad, they are all still good songs.

P4K 2K9

(sendspace download)

track list:

1. Warm Heart Of Africa - The Very Best (ft. Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend)

2. Fake Empire - The National

3. Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear

4. Wind Phoenix - Cymbals Eat Guitars

5. Resovoir Park - The Dutchess and The Duke

6. Kettering - The Antlers

7. Weed Demon - Wavves

8. Run Into Flowers - M83

9. Wet Hair - Japandroids

10. Canadian Girl - The Walkmen

11. Stay Alive - The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart

12. Postcards From Italy - Beirut

13. Furr - Blitzen Trapper

14. Black Rice - Women

15. Red Cave - Yeasayer

here is a mix i made for the lovely hb following her accident this weekend and is in the mail to her now.

the ones you love

(sendspace download)

1. Kathleen - Josh Ritter

2. California Stars - Wilco and Billy Bragg

3. Cinnamon - The Long Winterss

4. Slip of a Girl - Duke Special

5. Sundress - Ben Kweller

6. Written In Heart Signs, Faintly - Throw Me The Statue

7. Park Song - The Dodos

8. Me and the Bees - The Softies

9. In The Dark On Monday - The Woodlands

10. Astronaut - Salem

11. The Last Snowfall - Vienna Teng

12. Sea of Love - Cat Power

13. I'll Be On The Water - Akron/Family

14. Sunol - Will Stratton

here are some songs i like for the summer.

real summer

(sendspace download)

1. French Navy  - Camera Obscura

2. The Earthquake of  '73 - Fruit Bats

3. You Really Got A Hold On Me - She & Him

4. You Came to Me - Beach House

5. Ce N'est Pas Bon - Amadou & Mariam

6. Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa Remix - The Very Best

7. things will never be the same again -  jj

8. Teen Lovers - The Virgins

9. Raw Sugar - Metric

10. Green River - Real Estate

11. Beautiful & Very Smart - Harlem

12. Deadbeat Summer - Neon Indian

13. Ce Jeu - Yelle

14. 2080 - Yeasayer

15. My Night with the Prostitute From Marseilles - Beirut

16. Summer Days - Phoenix

i was delirious, i clung to the stretcher

me this last week without sleep.

i'm fading but ridiculous.

if you have to stay, i'll be on the water

every night for over a week, i've been having these dreams. they are about as real as dreams can be without being reality, and i wake up at four every morning without fail.

my sleep is rocky, and my dreams are almost nightmares.

so i have these little interludes in my nights of words and music.

no matter the weather

i think my body is filled with some dense substance that makes me feel night quite human.

the side-effects of this include an inability to sleep while creating an unshakable fatigue.

what if i kept going?

i'm having an unrequited love affair with the world.

i see what i had not known

the morning feels like california. cool and bright, with the sound of cars and coffee in the air. i'll just imagine that i'm in san diego for a bit. that if i leave this room, mare will give me a cup of coffee, and i'll sit outside and pet jolie and watch the ocean. i'll walk to the yacht club and sail and, on the way back, stop in at red's and eat a bagel and sit. that would be nice. i'd like to go to san diego.

a burning rain

i'm thinking about getting out of bed.

i think it's time to start living in ALL CAPS.

don't think twice

someday i will be filled with an inherent rightness regarding my existence. but that isn't today yet.

someday. and i hope soon.

i want so much but all i can think is

LET ME GET AT YOU.

like truth, like ice, like fire

i've been thinking about things i am going to change a lot lately.

my major is one of them.

i've been spending a lot of time trying to "self-improve" this summer.

i have become genuinely happier, with a little help. i've been trying to take better care of my hair and skin and nails.  the weather is not helping with this, but i'm giving it my best shot. need to remember to work hard, both at my research and with sticking to goals. kind of important.

i'm going to be less scared and less jumpy, that is the plan. i am going to be comfortable in my own skin and do what needs to be done.

i am going to take new risks. i am going to be honest. i am going to do what makes me happy and satisfied instead of doing what is expected of me. i am going to be okay with not knowing.

i know i don't hold all the cards. i am going to stop grasping for them.

have myself a home-life

due to unforeseen complications in what ended up being a failed plan, i was at my most upset and frustrated and even angry (something i don't express very often) earlier today. i was blue and lonely.

i haven't really seen people in over a week, and things were just feeling like i had made a huge mistake in deciding to come back to madison for the summer and in a lot of other ways, too. but then my mom staged an intervention (because as previously mentioned, she always knows), and i was whisked out to have dinner at the home of some very close family friends.

even though i am still disappointed and sad and angry, being with people who know me so well and love me and genuinely want to be with me is such a lovely feeling. i hadn't realized how very lonely i have been the last week until i wasn't lonely. i like not being lonely.

i love being loved and being with those i love.

dear shadow, alive and well

i'm not sure whether i want to be more or less like my mother. i'm sure that inevitably i will end up being more like her than i will ever fully realize, but if i had the choice, i'm not sure which i would choose.

i think my issue here is that i that i am able to see in myself the negative qualities that she possesses but not the positive ones. it's hard to say whether this is because i focus on faults more than i should (a quality that we share in different ways) or that because we are mother and daughter, i am not able to see the positive traits we share, since we don't always interact in a capacity that reveals them to me.

i will admit that an irrationality and impulsiveness of mood, which i can hardly tolerate in her, is something i unquestionably share. she is a harder worker than me and is able to take pride in a job well done in a way that i do not. i also wish i had more of her "joie de vivre," per se, as i love those times in which our family becomes effortlessly fun - kevin has inherited for sure, but that is also partially because i sometimes think he and my mother are nearly one and the same. mimi is like her in a different way, but i think this is because it is so easy to see my grandma haha in her. and of course my mother and maternal grandmother are going to have at least a cursory resemblance of disposition.

the reason i write this here is because i find it difficult to accept how well my mom knows me and can read me. i have such a need to be independent, even though i am not very good at it. honestly, she knows what mistakes i am going to make before i make them and what i'm going to succeed in before i do. i have such a drive to please her because somehow when she is happy with me, i know i can be happy with myself.

when i was a baby, so the story goes, someone told my mom that there had never been a mother and child so bonded. in a way, i think we still are - i think i might kind of be her shadow, the parts of me that come from her change and fluctuate all the time and in different settings.

i want to belong completely to myself, but i know i will always, at least a little, be a part of her.

i may not always love you

the people who play music that i can hear have terrible taste.

I CAN ONLY HANDLE SO MUCH BLASTING OF TAYLOR SWIFT and ASHER ROTH.

OH GOD.

think it might be time to get some huge speakers in retaliation.

big mouths need big, big ears

i am beginning to think that the recent streak of broken possessions is the physical manifestation of my inability to keep my life together.

need to keep it together.

it was written in heart signs, faintly

i believe in evolution, social justice, workers' rights, humanism, that creative expression is the height of human consciousness, and the right to diversity of belief, to marry the person you love, and to do as you choose so long as it does not adversely affect another human.

and God.

i do not find this to be in any way contradictory.

remember walking on the first time

some of this is moving over to

cultivatingsprezzatura.wordpress.com

but some of it is staying here

and this is going to rebecome the brigid word vomit and badly written anecdote world.

i need to go make a grocery list. and get my haircut. and go to the dentist. i'm going to be a whole new girl.

symbols clashing everywhere

Little tangled but ready to fly.

Hope is in the air these days.

Hong Kong Garden - Siouxsie and the Banshees

spin me around again and rub my eyes

Just hang me out to dry and leave me there for a while.

I'll come back sun-bleached, bright, and smelling like fresh linen.

Just give me a minute and make sure it doesn't rain.

when so much is left undone

I made it through, and here I am without anything to say about it that anyone wants to hear.

And, so, I won't. Maybe when I have some sleep in me, I'll have some kind of deep thoughts, but right now, I'm looking forward to a warm bed, biking to Bouchee for breakfast in the morning, and scouting out a birthday present fit for a soon-to-be teenager.

There are simple joys to be had in life. Like this:

feel like you're living in a russian play where it seems like you made everybody mad

you curl your fists and you pull your hair

Today, I am less sure that things always end the way they should.

I am young and lost.

Want to go home. Need to go home. Scared to go home.

i'd hate to leave you; i'd love to leave you for good

I think I'm content right now or maybe resigned. I know I'm okay.

I have my reasons.

you gotta get that dirt off your shoulders

It can be hard, but sometimes you just have to pick your head up and keep moving.

there's a place and time for everything, i know - don't ask

Sometimes things are strangely broken or just plain wrong. This is the way things work. This is how it's meant to be. They'll get fixed or respelled eventually.

say what you will - i don't care. i couldn't resist it.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. As finals grow ever nearer, it has become necessary for me to photograph myself in varying states of sleeplessness, stress, disarray, and confusion in order to keep a visual record of why I should keep up in my homework instead of procrastinating.

Obviously this has failed and instead has led me to waste more time by sharing some special favorites of me looking like a crazy person here. I admit to being about 74.3% insane. Here is some photographic evidence.

No commentary necessary.

Apparently rocking the side-pony and a beater. I was probably either wearing no pants or jorts. Seeing how this is in the dorm, probably no pants.

Second occurrence of the side-pony. This time you can also see my boyfriend, the body pillow.

Raspberry beret. Red Bull Cola. Nothing good can come of this combo.

The day after Mifflin. Accomplished nothing, wore a headband.

Me right now. This is wonderment over why I would choose to spend time making this post when I have 12 pages to write.

c'est l'homme ideal charme au masculin

Think I'm going to quit school and become a party promoter. Yeah.

These are two songs on pretty heavy rotation right now:

Sexy Boy  - Air

Little Bit - Lykke Li

I hate you, macroeconomics.

i only wanted to see you laughing in the purple rain

Almost completely surefire way to improve a dreary and rainy morning:

1. Choose either jean cut-offs or purple pants.

2. Put on rain boots and an anorak.

3. Jump in large puddles.

4. Run.

5. Crawl around on rocks in a lake.

6. Do generally hoodrat stuff with your friends.

7. Dry off.

8. Repeat.

hey baby, don't you know? our dreams, they are the same.

Sometimes, I am very aware that I am young, alive, and experiencing things I will hold close to my heart for the rest of my life.

Music, friends, spontaneity, late nights in noisy apartments and on quiet streets, record stores, concerts and DJ sets and surprise appearances, sunny days, lakes and grass and hills and street lights - this combination is the territory I live in. I wouldn't trade it in at all.

Is there more than this?

i can keep you right behind me all my days in the sun

Terrace time. Officially spring in Madison.

That is all.

(Note the goony smile: I am always and forever a huge nerd.)

was i more alive then than i am now?

So, here in the Greek Theater of the SAC, Bade is doing something diligently on her computer. She feels fine. She's eating mangos.

Intensity is sitting on a concrete floor with a water bottle. Not sure why that would be an appealing option. But he apparently feels good enough to drink or eat.

I on the other hand, just ate my body weight in fried food at "Food on a Stick" night. Please see the following for the answer to the title of this post:
In case you were wondering, the answer to this question is a resounding "no." I might die. Or go into a food coma. Oh dear Lord. Ohhh dear.

Brandon and Danielle are so much smarter than me. Todd, on the other hand, ate just as much junk and then ate another cotton candy. He might be a goat, secretly.

Why do I do this to myself? Brigid, I hate you.

do that thang

Last night. Lyrics Born.

So I rolled up to the Majestic with J. Ash, arriving around 10. I am totally cheap, so I decide to wait for Truby so I can use his plus-one. Over the course of a 62-minute wait for that crew, we met some truly unique Madison characters, including an Insomnia Cookie salesman who at one point petted my arm for an uncomfortably long time and a washed up 28-year-old man who is moving to Galway. John was really ready to embrace hip-hop culture, sending text messages like "It's all hood." and pondering the wonders of Three6Mafia. "I can't even imagine how much of their lives they've been intoxicated. Probably years." Indeed, J. Ash. Certainly.

After finally going inside, John and I almost immediately spotted the one and only Lil Rail, everyone's favorite Madison promoter/rapper/actor/networker/clothing designer/awesome user of WordArt. I spent a lot of the night debating if I could approach him about hosting my birthday party in September. Also discussed was the possibility that Lil Rail could host Homegrown out on the Terrace next fall, bringing Midwestern hip-hop to the masses. Isn't that what he does best?

So there was a show, a guy had this weird green laser flashlight, and the girl with Lyrics Born was ridiculous. She gave the opportunity for the ladies to sing "What up? What up?" The highlight might have been the point at which a song ended with a freeze frame of Lyrics Born, the girl, and the DJ all holding their song-ending pose. Awesome. I actually really enjoyed the DJ - he won my heart by sampling both Led Zeppelin AND "Heartless" in his opening set before Lyrice Born came on stage. But things really went up a notch when it was time to give out the handbills for U-N-I and Wale.

Jamaal, the best employee of the Pub by far, made an appearance, as did Lil Rail. Apparently these two stellar men are acquainted because they shared a hug that lasted at least forty-five seconds. Jamaal is also roughly the size of 3.5 Lil Rails in all directions. Jamaal bounced, but Lil Rail stuck around to discuss show promotion and the difficulties of promoting in Madison with some other super-savory characters outside the Majestic. The moment that took the night to the next level, though, involved that other Madison breed: The Scene Kid.

(This story can only be told in the present tense.)

An ultra-hipster promoting a Wongz Wok show approaches John and I on the sidewalk. They gave out the Chinese menu flyer a while ago, and tonight are promoting DJ Benzi at Cafe Montmarte. We chat for a bit, and the kid looks at the flyer. "WUD? You guys know Patrick?" Yes, we say, of course. We know Patrick.

Kid scowls. "I read the shit he wrote on the blog about the Wavves show. Who the fuck does he think he is?"

"Oh," I say, awkwardly, "were you there?"

"Yeah, I was there. And you tell him not to blog about my bands. Tell him that if he blogs about my bands again there will be blood coming down on his head." John and I exchanged glances, both realizing he's pissed about the bands Patrick called out on the WUD Music blog for trying to sneak into Wavves. John had been on security detail; I had been let in against the rules. Noticing our reticence, the kid continues.

"He can't think he can diss local bands - they put food on his table. You've got to appreciate the local bands, they're the ones who keep this whole scene together. You tell him that."

I made some kind of noise of agreement at this and, trying to keep from getting my own head bitten off by this kid, say something about how I would pass the message along on Twitter. I am lame and awkward, yes, truly.

"Don't even do it on Twitter," kid says. "Tell him in person. Say, "Hey, Patrick," he pauses so I can repeat after him exactly what I'm supposed to pass along. "Solomon says, 'Don't shit where you eat.' "

"Yeah," I agree. "Yeah, I'll tell him." John concurs. Solomon leaves.

After a long moment of watching Solomon leave with his girl, J. Ash turns to me and reminds me, "Don't shit where you eat." We crack up and send Patrick the message from Solomon via text (not Twitter). And the response, unsurprising, is one word: Pub.

'cause i'm walking in new shoes now

In real life, I do not like feet at all.

They are kind of gross and in general tend to creep me out. This probably also has something to do with the fact that my own feet are ugly as sin and are the least appealing feet ever ever.

But for some reason, I have lots of pictures of feet on my camera, taken both by me and by other people.

Feet in shoes.

Bare ocean feet.

Feet in Keds.

Ripped Chucks feet.

Kicking feet.

Guatamalan slipper feet.

Feet with rainbow socks.

Party feet.

After that little Dr. Seuss fun, the word feet no longer holds any meaning to me.

In other news:

It was Easter. We went to the Easter Vigil up north, and I almost slapped the girl in front of us. Not a very Easter-Christian sentiment, but seriously, most obnoxious and ill-behaved kid I have ever seen at church. And she had to have been about ten. Come on.

Easter morning, back in Allouez, my grandpa ate a seashell because he thought it was a candy. That caused a serious ruckus. It was also highly entertaining. And weird. And kind of sad.

If you got this far, wow. You made it through a huge amount of bad pictures of feet plus Easter whining. I'm seriously impressed with you.

Triple word score if you clicked that link.

backstage with the modern dancers who feel it like i do

After an afternoon of fiascos at the mall with my mother, I'm home. And everyone left. My parents went to dinner with some of my dad's family. My sister went to a sleepover. And my brother is for sure causing a ruckus somewhere in this metropolis right now. And I am hungry but don't want to leave this chair since I am catching up on some serious DVR.

Moving takes too much effort.

So you can better understand my family, I will share with you some special reminders hung in the storage room at my great-aunt Phyl's. Being the Belgian-Czech-French-Germans that the Depreys are, these have probably been hanging on these shelves since the room was storage for the old store.

Look and learn from these words of wisdom (you may have to click and view larger to read):

Being home is a good thing.

i wanna bring back the bison

So yesterday.

I had this long entry planned in which I was going to talk about I was in such a good mood for no real reason, when I should be stressed and concerned. But then I had the kind of evening that puts a pall on the rest of the day, even if it was awesome. But because the rest of the day wasn't actually good, I hit the edge and cried in a shopping mall and actually several other sundry places. If anyone has any advice on how to draw up a spare $500-some dollars, let me know, thanks.

I think the reason I am so worked up about my failures with technology is because they were really avoidable. Had I not tried to fix my phone with KrazyGlue, Verizon would have replaced it for free. Had I not tried to remove said glue with GooGone, it would not have soaked into the screen and messed my phone up even more. And apparently coffee or Coke was spilled on my keyboard at some point, putting me out another $315.

Awesomely, my warranties would have covered a non-glued phone replacement and a new top-case for a non-coffeed Mac. I am so awesome. I should probably drive over my iPod when I'm home just to round things out.

Also, people at malls are really bizarre. There are hordes of families with about eight children under four, hooligans who just stand around in the food court, the mall-walkers, seventh grade hookers, you know them all. It's stressful.

I am going home in about an hour. I am both afraid to face my mother and relieved that I can go somewhere that I can sleep with dogs and my little sister sharing my bed, watch movies, go out to eat, and sit across the street at my grandparents' and do nothing.

I will also get to have so much Catholic in my life in the next few days, which is always a good time. Go Jesus. Go totally cult events like the Easter Vigil.

Deep breath. And this:

building up a castle in LA

I have rigged up my baby to an external mouse and keyboard for now. That's working well until she can get fixed up all nice and pretty next week. But I can handle this because...

I HAVE A LEAK OF THE FULL-LENGTH WOLFGANG AMADEUS PHOENIX ALBUM.

Intensity, you have absolutely no idea how much I am freaking out about this. Thank you.

My feelings for Phoenix can be explained like this: I have paid money for all of their albums. The only other bands I have done this for are The Shins and Sufjan Stevens. They are classed in my iTunes as "Frenchy Pop Bliss." My dad texted me way past his bedtime that he stayed up to watch them on SNL for me. Phoenix got me through being sick in foreign countries and the resulting tonsillectomy. Watching the "Consolation Prizes" music video on IMF while on a whole lot of Vicodin following that surgery was insane.

Watch it youself:

I'm twitching with excitement as I listen to this. I am ecstatic over this.

Guess what.

I LOVE PHOENIX.

i can say i hope it will be worth what I give up

My baby is ill.

Her keyboard and touchpad are non-responsive, though the rest of her is living and working just fine. It's like she's in one of those terrible, terrible "trapped in your body" comas, which I think might be the most terrifying thought I can imagine. In all honesty, I get the shivers sitting here in the library lab just thinking about it

Back to thoughts of my Mac getting fixed:


Don't worry, baby. I'm taking you to the mall on Saturday. The geniuses at the Apple Store will help you. Then we can do lots of homework together and listen to our favorite songs. It's going to be okay.

I'm surprisingly not super worked up over this. This is probably the biggest sign that I have become too tired to care about much because I tend to get upsetabout my laptop running out of battery and this is far more dire.

Back to the mines for me.

a craze you'd endorse

The Tallest Man on Earth was fantastic last night - dynamic, engaging, appreciative of the audience. He played a bunch of new songs, and they really lived up to the music from "Shallow Grave." I'm really looking forward to a new release from him.

In other news, the weather is April Fooling to the max. Left for work in flurries and dismal skies this morning, came out of my last class to almost 50 and sunny.

I can handle the gray and dreary under certain circumstances. For instance, when I was in England with my family two years ago, we barely saw a sliver of sun, but it was wonderful nonetheless. (Side story, I was also epically sick the whole time, not so wonderful.)



I guess it was sunny in Windsor. I must not have noticed due to jet lag.




Also sunny our first morning in London, apparently. I'm sure I have pictures that back my "not sunny, still awesome" theory.



Not sunny, still awesome, twice. Two points. St. Margaret's might be one of the prettiest parts of Westminster.



Kensington: cloudy, gorgeous.




The fact that Oxford - as pictured above (Sheldonian Theatre, Christchurch, the moat around Christchurch) - worked within my theory increased my love for it even more, I did not realize that was possible.

In my epic dream future (you don't want to know), I will live in Oxford for a while.

Also in my epic dream future, someone will apply this song to me - in particular the cover I just linked you to.